


Five kisses

by Aethelar



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Imposters, Kisses, M/M, Sex Pollen, True Love's Kiss, Weddings, ahahaha yes, also delgado, delgado is a twit and we love him, get your lives together or so help you tina will do it for you, monkey!Newt, pheremones, pheremones is apparently not a tag, tina is tired of your shit, well that one is definitely a tag, what's the conventional tag for that then?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 08:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8837263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: Full title: Five kisses that went nowhere for Graves and Newt's relationship, and one that went somewhere important.
Alternative title: Five times Tina shows remarkable patience with her idiot boys and their inability to admit their feelings, and one time she puts her foot down.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Gramander folks, this is my gift to you, particularly the readers of Your words are ink that share Tina’s frustration about Graves’ complete lack of emotional intelligence. Please be warned that it was mostly written under severe sleep deprivation and I make no apologies for that. Just. Enjoy. Yes.
> 
> (also, heads up chaps there are people who are Not Graves hitting on Newt how very dare they and there's also sex pollen and pheremones flying around so, you know, unwanted advances and consent issues and stuff, they are very minor but if this is not your thing then shoo)

**1.**

It took Graves almost a year to build up the confidence for the first kiss. He’d thought of other ways, of course. He’d composed love letters on glowing yellow spell-it notes and set them on fire before anyone could see, he’d rehearsed words in his head over and over until they lost meaning and he ditched them in disgust, he considered - in one glorious moment of cowardice that he regrets not following through on - thinking too loudly around Goldstein’s sister and getting her to do it for him.

But in the end, it boiled down to a kiss. Graves was a man of action. A kiss was an action. Graves would tell Newt he l ~~oved him~~ was interested in pursuing a relationship with him by giving him a kiss. It was classic. It was timeless. It worked in the stories, and if Newt didn’t like it then Graves would emigrate to Australia anyway so that was all fine.

In light of the classic, timeless nature, Graves waited until the office christmas party (one which was defiantly not tee-total, despite the no-maj insistence on restricting the stuff). Newt was loitering in the corner, shoulders tense and fingers drumming rhythmlessly against a plate of barely-eaten christmas cake. His eyes kept darting between the exit doors and Tina, mingling somewhere towards the centre of the room, and it didn’t take a genius to work out that he’d rather be anywhere other than at someone else’s office christmas party.

“Newt,” Graves said, approaching the man with a level of determination and backbone he usually reserved for making an arrest.

“Ah - Graves?” Newt asked. Graves nodded, the movement coming out robotic and stiff like a poorly constructed clay golem, and triangulated his plan of attack.

“Do you want to get out of here,” he said - asked, he asked, though he’d failed to remember to make it sound like a question instead of a memorised monotone. Graves would have flinched if he’d been a lesser man. Newt, thankfully, looked too relieved to fuss about the phrasing.

“Fuck yes,” he said, waving his plate of cake away to land haphazardly behind the tree. Graves startled, just a bit, because Newt never usually swore - but. Christmas parties. Extenuating circumstances.

“Ok.” Graves took a breath to steady himself and followed Newt towards the doors. “Ok.”

Doors were approaching.

Three steps.

Two steps.

One step -

“Oh look,” Graves said with exactly no surprise but a great deal of primal fear. “Mistletoe.” It was a sad, droopy twig, and he regretted ever deciding to pin it to the lintel.

Newt glanced up. “So it is,” he said with an easy shrug, and leaned over to plant a soft kiss on Graves’ stunned and gaping mouth. He was several yards down the corridor before he realised that Graves wasn’t following.

“Graves?” he asked, drawing the word out into a question.

“You kissed me.” The three words contained hope and shock and the tiniest spark of wonder, so Graves repeated them. “You _kissed_  me.”

Newt frowned, a tiny wrinkle of confusion appearing between his eyebrows. “Only for the mistletoe,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything.” Graves’ heart called strike and dove into his stomach to die a grisly death dissolving in acid. Australia, then. No other solution.

“… unless you want it to mean something?” Newt squinted at him, confusion falling away to surprise and, Graves was tentatively hopeful to note, interest. His heart resurfaced, not yet willing to return to its rightful place, but holding off on the acid death for now.

He started mentally flicking through the battle plan he’d so carefully memorised because surely somewhere he’d accounted for this situation. Newt didn’t give him time to find an appropriate response though, reaching back and grabbing Graves by the hand. He scanned the crowd behind them and grinned, satisfied that no one had noticed their interaction.

“Let’s take this somewhere a bit more private shall we, director?” he purred. Graves’ brain stuttered to a stop and he allowed himself to be dragged bonelessly down the dim corridor. Two corners in, when the dull chatter of the office party had faded to near silence, Newt spun back and pushed Graves against the wall.

Short circuit. Magical feedback loop. Backfired spells going off in Graves’ brain. Guh.

Newt’s body was a long line of heat, from the thigh that gently nudged Graves’ legs apart to the press of his body against Graves’ chest. Newt’s arms caged Graves in against the polished black of the wall behind him, the cradle of his hips slotted into Graves’ like they’d been moulded there. He leaned over and _loomed_ , the angle making Graves tilt his head back to look up and see Newt’s dark-lidded eyes and the victorious tilt to his smirk. For want of anywhere else to put them, Graves’ hands ended up tangled in the navy button-down Newt was wearing, dragging it open slightly to reveal pale, freckle-spotted collarbones. Graves stared at the beads of sweat collecting in the hollow of those collarbones and was seized by the overwhelming urge to lick them.

_Guh_.

“Look at me,” Newt rumbled, nipping a reprimand into the sensitive skin of Graves’ ear. His eyes shot up, wide and dark and helplessly obedient. There was little else he could do against that tone. Newt’s mouth opened, the edges of his teeth flashing as he dipped his head and mouthed wet heat at the corner of Graves’ jaw. One hand lowered from its place on the wall, long fingers trailing lightning-sparks down Graves’ side. He shifted, tilting his head back to give Newt better access, and the moan he couldn’t quite suppress emerged as a strangled whine. Newt laughed, puffs of air against his neck, and those burning fingers tugged his shirt loose until they could slip underneath and draw maddening circles on the over-sensitive skin of Graves’ hip.

“Who would have thought it,” Newt breathed, his lips brushing against Graves’ neck with every word. “MACUSA’s attack hound can be brought to heel.” The hand on Graves’ hip dug in, a flash of pain against the sparks of pleasure that made him stifle a gasp and spread his hands out over Newt’s chest for balance.

“Even old dogs learn new tricks,” he grit out and fired the strongest blasting curse he knew how from his open palms. Newt flew back like a marionette jerked away on its strings, falling to a crumpled pile on the floor. Graves crossed the corridor in two strides, bodily hauling Newt up and pinning him by the throat against the wall.  His voice dropped to a cold snarl. “So tell me, who the fuck are you and where the fuck is Newt Scamander.”

The impostor sneered, all pretence at mimicking Newt’s mannerisms gone. His face twisted into an anger that sat ugly and wrong on Newt’s features. “Or what, you’ll arrest me?” He laughed, a single bark of derision. “Molesting the director is hardly a capital offence. I think I’ll cope.”

Graves raised an eyebrow. “I’m not asking as an auror,” he said mildly. The faint blue-white of magic crackled over his fingers and brushed against the other wizard’s racing pulse. “Where is Newt Scamander?”

The fake Newt swallowed, very carefully, around a suddenly dry mouth.

—

“So you regularly kiss a guy to out an imposter, or just the ones that look like Newt?” Tina asked later, when the impostor in question - a David Banbury, investor and businessman, one whose debts had started piling unfortunately high since Graves cracked open that black market potions ring a few months back - was being led to his cell. It turned out that molesting the director couldn’t get you arrested but breaking and entering with intent to steal government secrets, that was enough to warrant a fairly heavy sentence. The slow acting contact poisons he’d been planning to smear over the auror department were just icing on the cake.

Kidnapping, thank Merlin, was not in fact on the man’s list of crimes - he’d merely caused a distraction over in Brooklyn with a swarm of Cornish pixies and Newt had leapt at the chance to ditch the Christmas party in favour of rounding them up and dishing out pasties to calm them down.

Graves let his gaze linger on Newt’s tousled figure. One of the pixies was sitting on his shoulders, knobbly blue knees tucked under Newt’s ears and hands tangled in Newt’s hair like a little child. A second was perched on his hip, one of Newt’s arms slung around it’s back for support. Three more sat on his shoes, one of which seemed to be tying his laces together. Newt himself was dirt-streaked and happy, loose-limbed and relaxed. He wiggled his fingers at the pixie on his hip and made a tiny green butterfly dance over them, laughing in delight when the pixie reached forward to catch.

He turned back to Tina. “Special case for Newt,” was all he said. Except, a minute later when his brain had caught up to reality, “And Goldstein, if Newt hears about this from you -”

Tina waved him off. She did look disappointed in him though, so Graves considered it a threat well spent.

—

**2.**

It took Graves an unfairly long time to get his confidence back up to try again. He had half a mind to just abandon the idea, given how badly it had worked out the first time. He talked himself into and out of it almost every day until it became just a thing he did. Part of his morning ritual.

It would have been fine, perhaps, if his subconscious mind wasn’t a complete dick that kept supplying the memory of being pressed against the wall by the Newt impostor. At highly inopportune moments. David Banbury was a dirty little toe rag and Graves had no desire to remember him at all, except that his subconscious threw images at him of Newt’s collarbones and Newt’s hand running down his chest and the puff of Newt’s breath against his neck -

Australia, coincidentally, was still on the cards. Graves was willing to forgo his coat in the heat and everything. That or apply cooling charms to the nines, he was still undecided.

But the point was, Graves had decided not to touch the Newt situation and wait and see if it would resolve itself, because he’d been waiting for over a year now and it hadn’t killed him yet.

Then he turned the corner one unsuspecting morning in February and found Newt caged in against the coffee machine by Willard from downstairs. Newt was not short but he was shrinking back into the wall like an aggressed snail and Willard had a very efficient boxing-in technique going on along with the sleaziest leer Graves had ever seen.

“Everything ok here, gentlemen?” he asked in the mild, polite way a leopard might disembowel its prey. The look Newt shot him was equal parts relief and mortification but Willard (scum of the earth) tossed a dismissive look over his shoulder and told him to “Piss off boss, we’re busy.”

Willard (scum of the earth) found himself on a one way surprise portkey trip to his new posting on the sewers case. It was a case that required an awful lot of time in the field, such a shame that. Graves took great pleasure over the next week in denying the man’s requests for reassignment, bubble head masks, holiday leave or resignation. Great pleasure.

Newt, on the other hand, fiddled awkwardly with his sleeves and settled his scarf more firmly around his throat. “Sorry,” he mumbled into the thick wool. “That was probably my fault.”

And he left.

Which. Ok.

Except that it happened again on Wednesday. Not with Willard (scum) - this was Virgil, a terrifying lady who was almost completely squib but made up for it with the ability to calculate eight ways to murder someone using a paperclip and the cold dismissal of humanity required to implement each one. She was one of Graves’ favourite aurors and normally he had no issue with her habit of targeting the new recruits for sex because it was the only non-destructive hobby she had and he thought a good boss should encourage such things.

Newt, however, was not a new recruit and hadn’t been given the Virgil 101 briefing that all new recruits were given. He therefore should not have been sat in the cafeteria, frozen in place like some small animal being cornered by a demented shark while Virgil ran her fingers through his hair. By the time Graves had stormed across the room she’d progressed to undoing the top buttons of his shirt and Newt was making aborted movements towards the sleeve his swooping evil lived in. Why aborted? Release the brain drinking nightmare, Newt. Why do you even _have_  it if not for situations like this. 

“A touch forward for the cafeteria, isn’t it?” he asked Virgil as he approached. Scathing disdain was not overtly present in his voice because she _was_ one of his favourite aurors, and the reasons for that involved her willingness to castrate a man at forty paces. Scathing disdain was therefore restricted to being heavily implied.

“We don’t have to stay in the cafeteria,” she murmured, cupping Newt’s face in her manicured hands and tilting it up for a kiss.

Graves mentally bid goodbye to his ability to father children and took out his wand. On second thoughts, he just pushed his way between the two and bodily shielded Newt from harm. “There’s a man waiting for an interrogation,” he said. “Room IC-12. Traffics magical children from no-maj families before they’re old enough to register in the system.” He smiled, low and dangerous (and just that tiny bit bloodthirsty, but then, you had to be when dealing with Virgil). “You have my permission to break him.”

Virgil’s eyes widened. She hesitated, clearly torn between Newt and the child trafficker, but in a contest between sex and violence there would always be a clear winner. With Virgil, at least. God forbid she ever try to combine to two.

She bared her teeth in something that barely resembled a grin. “It would be my pleasure.” The kiss she blew Newt over her shoulder as she stalked away was a bit much, but Graves considered it a win that they’d all emerged with limbs (and manhoods) in tact.

When Graves turned around, Newt had scooted as far down the bench as he could reach and hunched in on himself. The scarf was back, winding around his ears and down a fair amount of his chest and shoulders. It looked like Newt was trying to hide in it.

“I’m sorry,” he said - and why, Graves should be apologising for Virgil’s behaviour, Newt why have you got this so backwards - “I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

Graves stared. “That was Virginia Virgil,” he said slowly. “No one lets anything happen. It just happens.”

“Still,” Newt said, and folded himself into his scarf as he backed out the cafeteria.

The third time - third! - that some twerp tried to hit on Newt that week he considered using his political clout to pass a law about it. Death penalty mandatory, see if that would make the fuckers take notice. The fact that it was not one twerp but was in fact a group of four of them made it worse, and Newt just cowered back into his scarf like an old lady in a shawl and looked miserably guilty while Graves’ aurors tried to out-cheese each other’s pick up lines and run their hands down Newt’s arms.

Graves didn’t even bother with threats, veiled or otherwise. He swept in behind, picked Newt up in a wandless hovering charm and marched straight on into his office.

“Newt,” he said with admirable patience. “Watch closely. Hands like this, push this one forwards and up like that, and this is how you break someone’s nose. Yes?”

“It’s not their fault,” Newt protested, muffled beneath the layers of his scarf. Blanket. Whatever knitted item he was currently wearing. He said something else as well, but the words were lost in miles of yellow and black wool. Graves stepped forward to where Newt was sat huddled in his chair and pulled the scarf down from behind. The static made Newt’s hair stand up, a mussed bedhead of ginger fluff that Graves couldn’t help but stare at.

It was either stare at the ginger fluff or get distracted by _bedhead_  which would lead to thoughts of _collar bones_  and –

“Are you going to kiss me?” Newt asked. He sounded resigned, of all things.

“Haven’t you had enough of that?” The words came out softer than Graves had expected them to. His hand had somehow migrated to cradling Newt’s head and his thumb was stroking tiny circles just in front of his ear. But he meant it, he really meant what he said. He wasn’t going to make advances of his own on Newt when Newt was so busy fending off advances from the plebeian masses. He wasn’t. He should pull his hand back.

Except that Newt’s lips parted and there was the beginning hint of blush growing in his cheeks. Graves’ thumb ran down the line of his jaw and dug into the corner of his mouth, just the faintest of pressures on Newt’s bottom lip.

Newt let his mouth drop open. His eyes fell to heavy lidded, dark gaze and blown pupils fixed on Graves. _Australia_ , some distant part of Graves’ morals whined, but Australia could go fuck itself. Graves bent down, an agonisingly slow movement that Newt tracked every inch of. His thumb pulled lower, dragging Newt’s mouth open and slipping down to hold his chin as Graves tilted Newt’s head up for a kiss.

It was open mouthed and molasses slow, a long glide of lips and saliva. Graves ran his tongue over Newt’s bottom teeth, committing the taste of them to memory. Someone moaned. Not Graves. Maybe Graves. Newt’s hand slid into his hair and tilted his head to the right angle and Graves _did_ moan then at the demanding tug on his hair. He curled his tongue around Newt’s and coaxed it into his own mouth to explore, his other hand reaching up to loosen the scarf and find those damnably distracting collar bones and -

Newt pushed him away, eyes wide and mouth dropping open in horror.

“Oh god,” he said. Graves blinked, not quite sure what had happened, and Newt practically dislocated an arm in his haste to pull the scarf back over himself. “Oh god, I’m so - sorry doesn’t cover it, I don’t, I’m sorry, _oh god_.”

And with that confusing rendition, Newt fled. Graves was left staring forlornly at the empty chair and deliberating whether the arid red desert of central Australia was a good enough punishment or if he should just cut to the chase and drown himself in the sea.

—

“Newt wants to tell you he’s sorry,” Tina said, trying and failing to hide the fact that she thought they were both idiots. “He had an accident with some Griffin pheromones and any lightheadedness, inexplicable desire to throw him down on the nearest available surface and shag him senseless, or localised metallic patches appearing on your skin can all be attributed to them. He recommends mashed avocado for the metal, it’ll stop it drying out and cracking.”

“Pheromones?” Graves repeats.

“Pheromones,” Tina confirmed. “Which are entirely ineffective on people who are already in love, so Newt will be staying with my sister for the next couple of weeks until they’ve worn off.”

“Ah.” A pause, while he considered that perhaps he should relieve Willard (probably not actually scum of the earth) of his sewer duties. Then, “I don’t think I’ve got metal patches yet, but I’ll let you know if I do.”

Tina rolled her eyes at him. “Of course you don’t. You’re in love,” she said, and stalked out of the room as if that was that.

“Hey, wait - wait a second,” Graves called after her. “You can’t just say things like that and walk away, Goldstein!”

Tina threw her hands up and continued stalking.

—

**3.**

Graves has never been to England but he’s heard Newt talk about it often enough. It would look, he imagined, something like this. Like the rolling, gentle countryside that falls away beneath his feet, the softly waving fields of corn - wheat, they’d have wheat in England, yellow-gold and dotted with the bright red of poppies. Oak trees stand watch atop their green-clad hills and bluebells carpet the forest floor.

He wanders, lonely as a cloud, through a field of daffodils and watches the ripples spread from the trailing branches of a weeping willow. In the distance, the stately turrets of an ivy-clad castle rise above the thatched roof of a gatekeeper’s cottage. The daffodils melt away into window boxes and hanging baskets, narrow cobbled streets and butter-warm stone houses with painted wooden doors and butterflies dancing around the foxglove stems. He’s standing in a garden, now.

The gate, when he unlatches it and swings it open, creaks. He’ll have to fix that when he gets back, if it’s still there. The dog at his feet leans forward, pulling at the lead in its eagerness to go.

(What kind of dog? It flickers, great dane spaniel boxer hound, but more important than the colour of its coat is the way it stands at his side with its ears up and its tail up higher and the way its tongue lolls out of its mouth in the summer heat)

He walks. Cobbled streets become grassy lanes, tea shops and antique stores giving way to a river lined with bullnrushes and the aimless waddle of the mallard duck.

The dog is off the lead. It runs across the path, dragging sticks behind it through the fallen autumn leaves, sniffing at rabbit holes and interestingly shaped bits of mud. Graves twists a red-green apple off a low hanging branch and the juice bursts sweet over his tongue.

The dog stops. Head raised (dalmatian terrier border collie), tail held straight out behind it - then it bounds forwards, joyful and loud, and Graves scrambles to follow. He rounds the corner at speed, the open riverbank falling away to a crocus-strewn forest path where the first buds of spring swell ripe and green in the trees. He doesn’t see Newt in time to stop, and the pair of them tumble to the mossy ground. Graves catches himself on his arms, braces himself above Newt with their faces scant inches apart.

“Graves!” Newt laughs, winded from the fall but delighted all the same. “What are you - what are you doing here?”

He blinks, and the winter snow clings to his eyelashes, the cold bringing pastel roses to bloom in his cheeks.

“I retired,” Graves says. He tries to think when, but –

Newt rested his arms over Graves’ shoulders, wrists locked together behind his head, and it brings them closer. “To England?” Newt asks.

There is something wrong with the scene, with the golden wheat and the untouched snow, the sun-ripe apples hanging over the river in spring, but –

Newt lifts his head, just enough that their noses brush.

“England is your home,” Graves says dumbly, and Newt closes the gap between them. He tastes of clover honey and bluebell woods and his tongue is silken warmth against Graves’ lips.

“My home is with you,” Newt whispers against his mouth, and the dog barks in the fading background. “Graves, don’t leave me here alone.”

Newt kisses him again, but he tastes of stale tea and desperation and the bitter tang of hospital sterility –

“Please,” Newt says, and Graves woke up. The room was barren and cold in the way that only hospitals could manage, a depressing efficiency in the crisp white sheets and metal bed frame. He pulled himself up on his elbows and cursed as every muscle he owned ached. They felt like they’d somehow rusted since he last used them. Old man muscles, ugh.

“Fuck me,” he spat, squinting his gritty eyes and wrinkling his nose at the taste of death in his mouth.

“Graves?” someone gasped. A second later there were hands holding him up in a sitting position, tugging the pillows behind him into a veritable nest to lean back against. “You’re alive, Merlin you’re alive, I thought, I thought, but you’re _alive_.”

“Newt?” Graves turned his head, gritting his teeth against the effort until Newt’s pinched face swam into bleary focus. “You haven’t been sleeping,” he said, maybe thought, maybe out loud or maybe in his head. He wasn’t really sure. There were sagging bruises under Newt’s eyes and his normally bright hair was dull and plastered against one side of his face.

Still, the smile that split his face was relieved, if wobbly. “You had that one covered,” he said. Graves felt the prickle of beard against his chin and the stiffness in his joints and he could put two and two together well enough. Physical therapy loomed over the horizon, he could feel it. He squashed the traitorous thought that said he’d rather be retired in England somewhere.

The door clattered as it slid open and Tina walked in, a steaming mug held in each hand. “They didn’t have mangoes or blacker-rot worms,” she said as she entered. “Does she eat bananas though? They have bananas.”

_Blacker-rot worms?_  What - oh. “Newt,” Graves said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose in a futile attempt to ward off the headache. “Do I want to ask how many creatures you brought into a hospital, or is it better if I don’t know?”

Newt laughed, a short, startled burst of it that sounded remarkably close to a sob. “Just two,” he promised. “Just the usual two. The rest are in the case.”

“Oh my god.” Tina froze in the centre of the room, clutching at the mugs with white knuckled fingers. “Oh my _god_ you’re awake. How are you awake, Newt what did you _do_.”

“I can go back to sleep if that would make you feel better,” Graves grumped. Newt twitched in his chair, an aborted movement to surge forwards and stop him from ever sleeping again. Graves made a face at his own bluntness and reached out to give Newt’s hand an apologetic squeeze.

“No,” Tina said quietly. She settled into the chair on the other side of the bed, still staring at Graves as though she couldn’t believe he was there. “No, not really.”

“Well. Good, then.” He steals the coffee and hands the tea to Newt and that’s that.

—

“You saw him?” was the question Tina asked, later, much later when everything had died down and Graves was able to eat apples again without getting stuck in the memories of England.

It had been a wish-trap, he learnt. A wasting disease, a way of trapping someone in a fantasy of their own mind. It worked by making the fantasy perfect, something so wonderful that you’d never want to wake up, never want to leave your perfect thing behind. There was a fad, among the rich and foolish, to use wish-traps as a form of lucid dreaming. If you went in with a metric crap load of safety spells on you and had a permanent anchor to the real world to keep you from going too deep then it could work. If any one thing went wrong, or if the dreamer decided that they couldn’t handle the fact that their perfect reality would disappear when they woke up, or if someone had been dealing black market traps with shoddy spellwork that frayed at the dangerous parts - you just didn’t wake up. Simple. All that remained was keeping the body healthy as long as possible and waiting for it to tick over and die while the person inside frolicked in their make believe heaven.

Grave thought of England, an England that was probably grossly inaccurate but was exactly as he’d imagined it, the yellow stone cottage with the thatch roof and the creaky gate, the foxgloves and the bluebells and kissing Newt in the snow.

“I had a dog,” he said. “And a really good apple.”

She gave him a knowing look, but apparently even Goldstein could find tact somewhere and she didn’t press the issue.

—

**4.**

Newt stayed close after the wish-trap incident. Tina did, too, but Graves could (and did) send her out on cases when her background hovering reached caustic levels of sarcasm. It was for her own good, really. One day she’d do herself some damage by excessive eye rolling, Graves was just looking out for her health.

Newt was around less often given that he didn’t actually work in the auror department, but he was a regular visitor. He brought lunch and he let Graves lean on him when his healing muscles froze up on him (which may potentially just possibly happen less than he pretended, but there was something so chivalrous about the way Newt offered his arm, it’d be rude to say no). He stayed to natter endlessly about his day and his animals and the latest habitat he was building in his case, and it was nice.

_Nice_. Like that could begin to encompass what it was. 

Then, one day in August, Newt didn’t show up.

Which was fine! It was fine. Man had a life of his own, couldn’t expect him to hang around Graves every day. It was just that Graves had found this little monkey thing and he’d thought Newt would like it, that was all.

The monkey was tiny, barely larger than Graves’ hands. It had bright orange fur that covered its entire body, with one part of the ruff around its face that was slightly curly and flopped forwards. Graves had almost stepped on the poor thing, cowering from the rain under a piece of sodden newspaper by the entrance to the Woolworth building.

“Shoo,” he’d said when it climbed up his leg and clung to his shin. And, “Go away,” when it tried to hide in his pocket in the lift to the auror department. And, “Piss off,” when it buries itself under his coat collar and wrapped its tail around the back of his neck for balance.

The monkey was currently sat on the corner of his desk, breaking off crumbs of the custard tart Graves had brought for Newt and stuffing them into its face with glee. See, Newt. That’s what happen when you skip lunch. Monkeys eat your tart.

“Pest,” he told it. The monkey looked affronted, as though it understood, and petulantly dropped the next crumb into Graves’ coffee.

Oh god.

What if the monkey _did_  understand? What if Graves had accidentally picked up a magical creature? He couldn’t let it go back out there where the no-majs could see it. It was _bright orange_  there was no way it was anything but magical. He scowled at it.

“Enjoy your freedom,” he said, “because as soon as Newt gets here, you’re getting locked away in a suitcase.” Which wasn’t exactly much of a threat, the monkey would love everything about Newt’s suitcase, but it did make the poor thing look dejected.

Graves did not feel guilty. He did _not._

… he did feel guilty, and he responded to it by making the wretched thing a cup of tea because he needed fresh coffee anyway and Newt had trained him too well. He felt remarkably stupid putting the mug down on the desk, but the monkey leapt at it with joyful chattering, so apparently it was the right thing to do.

It made him inexplicably happy, the fact that the monkey seemed to like him. Animals had always been Newt’s thing, Graves had never seen the appeal, but there was something about the way it clambered up to his collar when he put his coat on to go home, or the way it held onto his ear to look excitedly around when they got to his house, or the fussy way it picked at the bowl of dinner he put out for it on the table.

Dinner was a sliced banana, because Graves wasn’t completely blind to what monkeys should eat. Somehow the monkey _was_  blind because it stole bits of pasta and mince from Graves’ own plate without the slightest bit of remorse. Still, outright theft aside, the monkey was a polite houseguest and it curled up at the foot of the bed without even the hint of snoring or stealing the blankets. Much better than people Graves had shared with in the past.

Newt didn’t turn up the next day either. Graves left the monkey with Newt’s custard tart for the second day running and went to find Tina.

“Goldstein, have you –”

“All fine, everything under control, _no need to worry_ ,” she said in hurried tangle of words. Graves blinked. “But you can’t see him for a bit, he’s, he’s - he’s gone on holiday! Yes.”

“Holiday?” Graves asked incredulously. “Newt went on holiday?”

“Yes? No! Work trip. To the amazon. Saving baby dolphins. Very important.”

“The amazon?”

“Very far. Too far for owls. And sudden. Couldn’t leave a note.”

The worst thing was, it _could_  have happened. And Tina’s stress and panic _could_  be caused by Newt haring off to the rainforest at the drop of a hat, you never know. Graves squinted at her suspiciously but decided, in the end, to trust her.

“You’ll call me if he needs rescuing?”

She nodded, biting her lip and keeping her head aimed down at her desk. “As soon as I know,” she promised miserably, and that would have to do.

“No suitcase for you,” he told the monkey when he made his way back to his office. “Not for a little while, anyway. You’re stuck with me instead.” The monkey squeaked happily at that and offered Graves a bit of tart, and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

The monkey sat on Graves desk and chattered at him during the day. It ate custard tarts and bits of whatever Graves was having, and it amused itself with the various desk-puzzles and potted plants Graves procured for it. It also spent quite a bit of time curled up on his shoulder or stood on his knees with its tiny hands on the edge of the desk, watching what Graves was doing.

He found himself explaining things to it when it made questioning chirps, reading out confidential documents and detailing the history behind the cases. Then, because his office seems strangely quiet without Newt’s endless chatter, he found himself talking to it about other things. About what would it like for dinner, or why on earth did it drink so much tea but turn its nose up at coffee, or Paris, did it think Newt would like Paris?

Newt featured heavily. It was important, Graves reasoned - as soon as Newt came back from the amazon, or wherever he’d gone (he’d considered asking Tina but she looked slightly wild about the eyes these days so probably best avoid) then the monkey would be off to his suitcase, so. It was important.

The monkey wrapped itself around its tea and rested its chin on the edge of the mug and nodded sagely while Graves got lost in descriptions of those freckles, that smile, _oh sweet merlin those collar bones_. It was cathartic, to finally say it all out loud, even if only to a monkey.

At night, the monkey stealthily moved up from it’s nest at the end of the bed until, by the fifth day, it curled up against the back of Graves’ neck with its tail draped possessively over his shoulder. He considered moving it back, but. It was cute, with that little curly fringe and those big dark eyes. And it wasn’t like it caused problems, so he kissed it goodnight on its furry little forehead and let it stay.

The monkey was gone in the morning.

The monkey was gone, but Newt was back, perched on the corner of Graves desk and poking at one of the string puzzles. Tina hovered on the other side of the room, back to mostly reasonable levels of frazzled. Graves concluded that Newt had been the latest cause of her stress - it wasn’t much of a stretch of imagination - and that him being back meant that the situation was more or less resolved.

Graves absolutely was not focusing on Tina to distract himself from the overwhelming desire to pull Newt into a hug and bury his face in Newt’s hair and tell him something stupid like how much Graves missed him, of course not. How very dare you.

“How was the amazon?” he asked instead. Newt froze for a second, eyes darting to Tina for backup, before his face lit up with understanding.

“The rescue mission,” he said. “Everything fine. All successful and we rescued the, uh, turtles.”

“Dolphins.”

“Dolphins, rescued the dolphins.” He beamed. Graves looked between Newt and Tina and decided that whatever secret they were keeping from him was probably not life threatening and therefore not worth the effort to uncover. Although, really, Newt he could understand but shouldn’t Tina be better at lying than this? She was an auror. Poker faces were part of the job.

“I like the plants?” Newt tried in an awkward attempt at distraction. The question brought a sudden surge of sadness that the monkey had left, which was stupid, really, because he knew he’d have to give it up to Newt anyway. Magical creatures weren’t things one kept as pets, not without the seventeen different permits that Graves had ensured Newt possessed.

“You can have them,” he offered. “I only got them for the monkey, I’m not attached.”

Tina choked. “ _You_  had the monkey?” 

“I - yes?” Was this related to the secret? How could a _monkey_  have anything to do with Newt ‘saving dolphins’? “Was the monkey important?”

“No!” Newt squeaked, interrupting whatever Tina was about to say. “Not important at all, just a monkey - non magical, completely normal muggle tamarin, probably gone home.” He was blushing, which was in itself a very distracting sight, and had hopped down from the desk and crossed the room to the door. “Thank you for the tarts, sorry for the shedding, good to see you bye!”

Graves was left standing by the open door, taken aback by Newt’s sudden exist. In the background, Tina seemed to be fighting the urge not to scream.

—

“You told the monkey you loved Newt!” was what Tina accosted him with the next day. Graves threw a frantic silencing spell at her and stared wide eyed down the corridor for passers by. Luckily, there weren’t any, but he dragged her into an empty cubicle all the same.

“You can’t say that!” he hissed at her. “And how the fuck did you even _know?”_

She waved a hand impatiently, dismissing his question. “Did the monkey say it back?” she asked. Graves took a step back and reevaluated his earlier statement that she was less stressed now that Newt was home. She was clearly in need of some time off.

“Goldstein, it was a _monkey_.”

“Then did it write it on a spell-it note or try and feed you a banana, I don’t know what monkeys do!”

“No! It did monkey things! It didn’t tell me it loved me or anything because _it was a monkey_  and are you _sure_  you’re ok to be in work today, you look like you should take the day off for sick leave.”

Tina levelled him with the sort of stink eye she usually reserved for dark wizards or stupid people, and Graves felt a bit affronted. He hadn’t even done anything to earn it this time.

—

**5.**

So by this point, it was a pretty open secret among the auror department that Graves and Newt were hopelessly in love with each other but too mind bendingly incompetent to do anything about it. People who hit on Newt got banished to The Pit (also known as the ongoing sewer case crisis of ‘28, but The Pit was a catchier title). When Graves ended up in hospital, Newt moved his suitcase into the corner of the room and stayed there for three months straight. Graves was lost in a cursed coma that Newt brought him out of, probably with a kiss and the power of True Love. 

(Nobody could prove it was a kiss, as Tina hadn’t been in the room and Newt wasn’t saying, but nobody could prove it wasn’t so everybody agreed that it probably was.)

Naturally, then, when Graves gets thrown into a mutant cross-bred stinksap vine and doused in neon pink goo that sinks into his skin without a trace, the aurors send for Newt.

"He had an accident with a plant,” they tell the magizoologist when he arrives, flustered and out of breath with his hair askew. “Here, have a cup of tea, and go fix him, yeah?” Newt is hustled into the room with his hands wrapped obediently around the bowtruckle mug Graves bought him for Christmas and the aurors lock the door behind them.

The bit they failed to mention was that whole diagnosis by the mediwizard who’d examined Graves after the plant accident happened. It was long, complicated, and hideously awkward, but it boiled down to: get Graves laid or get him a funeral urn, but which ever one you go for, get it soon.

Newt would figure it out. And surely even their superhuman ability to not Get Together And Kiss FFS, I’ve Lost Half My Savings On This Damn Betting Pool Already would be unable to stand in the way of honest to god sex pollen. Goo. Sex goo.

Satisfied with their good deed of the day, the aurors left the key with Tina and moseyed down to the bar to plan how they’d spend their gambling gains.

Inside the room, however, things were not progressing with quite such simplicity.

“Newt,” Graves said through gritted teeth. “What the hell are you doing here and why the fuck do you have a cup of tea.”

“Um,” Newt said helpfully, looking around the room with wide eyes. It wasn’t large to begin with but it was made smaller by the enormous bed that dominated the far wall. There was just enough space between the side of the bed and the other walls for a slim bedstand on one side, helpfully stocked with glitter-gold condoms and strawberry lube, and Graves on the other, curled into a small ball with his head between his knees. “They said you had a, uh, a plant problem,” he explained hopefully.

“A plant problem,” Graves repeated. “A plant - yes. A problem. From a fucking plant.”

“I’m better at animals, but I know some things about plants,” Newt added. “I can help?” He ambled closer, which was Not Helpful, and tried to get at look at Graves to diagnose his symptoms. As that involved leaving the tea on the bedstand next to the glitter condoms what the fuck, Delgado I see your handiwork and you will rue this day - leaving the tea on the bedstand and crawling over the bed to get close enough to see, that was Not Helpful Either.

“Do you know what plant it was?” Newt asked. “Because you’ve got a fever and I can reduce that, but if that’s just a symptom of something else it’d be good to know.” He reached forward with his wand but Graves batted him away.

“No spells,” he said. “No spells. No magic. No nothing. Just. Stay over there.”

Proving his contrary nature, Newt did not stay over there. “You’re burning up though,” he worried, and put a cool hand against Graves’ flushed and burning forehead.

The touch sent ice water running through his veins, shivers chasing the feeling across his skin. Graves leaned into the touch and moaned, deep and throaty.

“Graves?” There was a hitch in Newt’s words that went straight to Graves’ cock, overly hard and overly sensitive against the sweat-soaked scratch of his clothes. “Graves, what?”

Graves turned his face, all but nuzzling into the palm that Newt wasn’t taking away. Newt curled his fingers, blunt nails raking through the hair at Graves’ temple and curling around his ears and it made his breath catch in his throat and come out in harsh gasps. His world narrowed to the touch of that hand and the memories, brief and unhelpful as they usually were, of how Newt’s kisses tasted.

“Graves,” Newt said, low and strained and almost worshipful and Graves could hear Newt saying his name all day, every day, he really could. A second hand joined the first, long fingers pushing back through the short stubble along the sides of his head. “Please. What’s going on?”

It was an effort to fight his eyes open. Newt hovered, flushed and all but panting above him. He was going to fall off the bed if he leaned any further over, and the only thing to fall on was Graves. It wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing to happen.

Except that Newt had said Please, so Graves levered his lust addled brain into gear and tried to answer. “Sex goo,” he started with, which might not have been the most helpful of things but was all he could manage. “Makes fever.”

Newt froze. “Oh,” he said. His hands tried to withdraw but Graves whined, the burning heat flooding back hot enough to hurt without Newt to keep it down. “What happens if you don’t get sex?”

If Graves doesn’t get sex he will literally burst of frustration, do you know how many times he’s tried to get Newt in a place where sex can be a thing that happens, do you even _know_. But, in a more immediate sense, “I think I die.”

The hands were back, smoothing down his neck and to his shoulders, dipping curious fingers beneath his collar and into the v his buttons left. He let his head tip back against the wall and stretched his legs out, trying to resettle his pants more comfortably. “I don’t want you to die,” Newt said, and of all the fucking things to be conflicted about he sounded conflicted about that. Graves reached up to grab the front of his shirt and pulled, jerking Newt off balance to fall on top of him. There were considerably more knees and elbows than anticipated, but the weight of Newt in his lap was solid and grounding and _right_.

“So don’t let me,” he growled when he had enough breath to do so, and screw Australia four ways and sideways, screw morals and screw everything else - he could apologise later and if Newt really wanted him to stop then he would but just now, just at that moment, he was burning to death and Newt was his salvation in the fucking desert if he could just get him in the right place and _oh fuck_ that was it, right there _._

“No,” Newt said and Graves’ heart stopped, but Newt just resettled his knees either side of Graves’ hips and ground down with his full weight. The force of it shot through Graves like lightning, stars behind his eyes and he gasped from the pleasure-pain-pleasure sensation. “No, I won’t. You’re not allowed to die on me, Graves, you’re not.” The hands were back in his hair and _gripping_ , sharp little tugs and pulls that made his scalp tingle. Graves tilted his head back and let his mouth fall open and Newt crashed down into him. It was teeth and tongues and desperation and Graves pawed Newt’s shirt open, spells dripping from his fingers to vanish the buttons. His hands slid over the scarred skin of Newt’s chest and he tore his mouth away from the bruising kiss because _those collar bones_ , he’d had entire _fantasies_ about those collar bones and he _needed_ them.

Newt didn’t let him get close. He dipped his head to Graves’ neck, pushing at his chin to give himself more access. His tongue was a firebrand burning a stripe from the junction of Graves’ shoulder to the soft skin under his jaw and Graves groaned, hips pushing up against Newt for more friction. Newt practically snarled at the movement and bit down on Graves’ pulsepoint, tongue flashing out to soothe the pain and apparently that’s what does it for Graves. He came with a shuddering, keening moan, burying his face in Newt’s chest and dammit, the collarbones were literally right there but he didn’t have the strength to taste.

Newt cradled him close, holding his weight up as Graves slumped, drained and exhausted. “I’ve got you,” he said, stroking his hands down Graves’ back. “I’ve got you.”

Yeah you have, Grave thought, but it took too much effort to say.

—

“No,” Tina said, arms crossed. The key dangled from her fingers, Graves could see it through the viewing spell on the door.

“We’re fine,” he said again. “The goo is gone. It’s run its course, there’s nothing contagious, I’m not going to die. It’s fine.”

She raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “And the two of you are lovers now, are you?”

“It’s complicated,” Graves said, as Newt answered, “They’re powerful aphrodisiacs, he really could have died,” and Graves continued - because it had to be said and now that he had his mind back Australia was looming again and he really wished it would stop that - “ _Fuck or die_ is hardly informed consent, Goldstein.”

Newt flinched. It was, Graves supposed, a fairly blunt way of putting it, and it was also a fairly horrible situation Newt had been put into. However much Graves wanted Newt he shouldn’t be relying on Newt’s innate goodness to get his way and have him.

“Yeah,” Newt chimed in miserably and refused to look up from the floor. “What he said.”

Australia was too good for Graves.

“No,” Tina said again, stronger this time. “No, I am not - do you two _peons_ realise how much you’ve cost me? I’m already doing Delgado’s paperwork for a month because of you.” It was something of a non sequitur as far as Graves was concerned, and from his expression Newt shared his confusion. It did though remind him of the glittery gold condoms Delgado had left (that Graves had absolutely not slipped into his pocket when Newt wasn’t looking) and the need to exact revenge.

Tina swung her hand up to point at Newt, going so far as to jab it aggressively at the see through wood of the door. “You,” she snarled, “are hopelessly and pathetically in love with him. Stop pissing about like a coward and own up to it.”

Graves blinked. That was - really? That was… fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy. Newt looked horrified to be outed, but a smile tugged at Graves’ mouth. A warm and fuzzy smile, because Newt _loved_ him.

The smile vanished when Tina turned her accusing finger on him. “You are an emotionally stunted ass who is _also_ hopelessly and pathetically in love with him but unable to comprehend that anyone could like your stupid tortured self back. Wake up and smell the coffee moron, because Newt’s been making moon eyes at you for months and waiting for you to make the first fucking move and I’ve had it up to _here_ listening to him talk about your coat and your arms and for the love of all things holy your ass Graves, he woke me up at three in the morning to talk about your _ass_. Three. In the fucking morning. _Your ass._ ”

Newt was scarlet and vaguely dazed by this point. Graves was pretty sure his own expression was of the 'fucked sideways by a rusty pitchfork’ levels of surprised (and disturbed, who knew Tina had it in her not him no siree), so he couldn’t really judge.

Tina took a breath to calm herself. “I,” she said, slowly and deliberately, “am going to let you out of the room. You are going to go home, have showers, and think about what you’ve done. Then you are going to sit down talk to each other about your feelings, and when you’ve done that you’re going to ask me to be the best man at your wedding. Got it?”

Graves nodded. Newt blinked, still slightly unfocused and detached from reality. “He’s got it,” Graves said, prodding Newt in the side. Tina glared, so tacked on a hasty “Ma'am,” and hoped that would appease her.

She nodded, satisfied. “Good. Now scram, both of you.”

—

**\+ 1.**

Tina was indeed the best man at their wedding, and Delgado moved seamlessly into being the maid of honour. The pair of them raked in a small fortune from the betting pool and spent the lot of it on an overly extravagant open air wedding, alcohol flowing freely from giant keg barrels and Newt’s creatures running havoc through the ensemble. The more volatile of them were contained, of course, but there were still quite a lot out free and mingling. It sparked a fair amount of nervous huddling and hushed comments of holy frick the Englishman has an _actual real life nundu,_ and, I heard he calls it Adelaide and feeds it cream scones, and, I bet that’s not jam on it, I bet it’s the blood of his enemies or something oh god.

There is, surprisingly given that the wedding is held in America, an entire tent in the field dedicated to serving different kinds of tea. Assorted aurors come to it and take a reverent cup of something hot and disgustingly sweet (I heard Graves complain about it once, the Englishman definitely puts thirty six sugars in his tea he must use magic to make it all dissolve) that they down much the way one would down a vile but life saving potion. They have a habit of raising their cups at the larger and more imposing of Newt’s creatures as they do it, as if proving that they are true followers of The Terrifying English Bloke (Holy Shit Bro) so if they could not be killed when he inevitably rose to power, that’d be grand, thank you terribly. Newt has no idea and is just delighted to point out to Graves how popular tea is among the department.

Delgado and Tina, on the other hand, are fully aware of the growing cult. Tina washes her hands of it because honestly, she’s got enough idiots to look after with Graves and Newt, but Delgado takes this shit and runs with it. He has a fan club. He’s in the process of picking out a colour scheme and then he’ll be selling replicas of Newt’s scarf in the Holy Shit Bro Official Colours. He spies on Newt’s tea drinking habits and reports back with devastating effect. (Guys, he tried the rooibos with vanilla, and it’s a _no go,_ abort entirely burn the stocks. Or, guys, I don’t understand it but apparently some teas have honey instead of sugar. How do we know the difference? What if we get it wrong? Oh god, what if we put sugar in the _wrong tea_?)

But, the growing culture of tea-worship to placate the Terrifying Englishman and his creatures aside, it’s a nice wedding. A good one. Frank flies overhead and keeps the skies clear, Jacob marshalls most of the creatures into something resembling order, and the aurors turn a polite blind eye to the no-maj on the scene. At the altar, Graves and Newt are wearing matching suits and sliding matching rings onto each other’s fingers. There are no impostors in sight and no mind altering substances (save for the punch, Delgado may have spiked the punch), so when the two of them kiss it’s just that.

A kiss.

It’s also the start of everything to come and the signal for the ironbellies crouched behind the trees to leap aloft with roars of flame that scare the crap out of everyone present (Newt excepted, because his old squadmates used to pull this trick all the time and it just makes him laugh) - but. Mostly.

Just a simple press of the lips, three whispered words, and a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Those of you who read Your words are ink will, of course, recognise the Holy Shit Bro club as being vacilando's idea. The thirty six sugars in Newt's tea is in reference to a tumblr post with the relevant sentence being:
> 
> Graves maintains that Newt’s tea is coloured water and who the hell needs that much sugar, Newt, you drink _twelve cups a day_ with three sugars in each, that’s _thirty six spoons of sugar_ no wonder you’re a complete nutter most of the time.


End file.
